quantifying labor

i spent an hour by the clock this morning threshing winter rye...pulling seed heads off the stalks and aggressively rolling them between both thumbs and index fingers...and being repeatedly stabbed by awns...goes with the territory...that hour of threshing got me 1 1/4 ounces of rye seed and awns and chaff ( yes i zeroed out the scale to negate the container's weight before i weighed the product )...another ten minutes of winnowing the grain and i had netted 1 1/8 ounces of clean rye seed to add to what has already been done...a total of 3 3/8 ounces so far, or about three-and-a-half hours of work..so...what's the result of that work? ( and there is more to do ) we ( because this will be going into the community garden too ) get w winter cover crop that is locally produced ( my back yard is as local as i can get )...it will also act as a reservoir for nitrogen th egreen manures that are planned for the garden will produce...two thirds of those seeds ( winter vetch and dixie clover ) will come form stands i grew in my yard as well ( i have not quantifies the labor for those...the winter vetch is simply a matter of splitting open the pods and dropping seeds into a container...about a thousand seeds to an ounce...not tremendously time consuming and i have 5 1/8 ounces of seed...more than enough for our purposes....dixie clover is far more intricate [ particularly when you have clumsy fingers ] and the returns far smaller in quantity of seed...that's another post ) the yet...field peas i purchased as well as inoculant for the bacteria to set up the symbiosis...we are not completely independent...yet...the good news is once a rizobia colony is established in a bed it can survive for up to five years without the introduction of host plants...if we use green manures every year we should only have to inoculate the beds once...more independence...i will be planting stands f all these plants this late summer to grow more seed...the process continues...so does the work.

potatoes and winter wheat

the yema de huevos that i planted in the bushel basket last weekend are really beginning to green up now and will be leafing out soon enough...i have another ( and a bit unexpected ) indoor project for the late fall and i am thinking there will be a second grow light added to the basement plant room...there's room so it should not be an issue and what's a bit more work? the ollala potatoes ( including the twins ) are solid and insect free in the basement storage box..no sign of softness, shriveling, or sprouts...the early blue are holding up as well ( fourth photo ) and the fifth photo is of two more ollala tubers i harvested this evening and will be adding to he storage box a soon as they are thoroughly dry...the bottom photo is of some winter wheat that has begun to tiller...indicating a well established root system that will allow some plant growth before dormancy ( or not...that remains to be seen...dormancy has been a rare commodity in overwintering perennials here...in my recent experience anyway...we will be watching for winter growth ) still more time to go but the season is drawing to a close ( for the annuals anyway )...lots of planning to do and the community garden promises to be a challenge this coming season...plans are in the works for another perennial and the roster of ancestors will be expanding...geeked is a good word to describe outlook on things...and i don't doubt that the gardens on campus and the stuff out back will feed into one another with all sorts of new ideas and connections.

digging tubers

i spent from 6:55 am until 9:35 am on campus harvesting the jerusalem artichokes, taking out the cowpeas, and sowing winter wheat...i used a spading fork to pop the plant and roots out of the ground ( it's one of the photos...i gave up trying to unrandomize the way these upload long ago)...there are tubers growing out of the roots at the base but they also radiate out a fair distance from the parent plant so you need to root around some ( i found myself digging back from the garden underneath the university's lawn to retrieve tubers...there will be rouges come spring) the photo with my feet in it is of the haul form just one plant...sixty plus tubers of various sizes and even more various shapes...i replanted ten tubers ( last year i replanted eight and ended up with fourteen...no doubt the population will be larger next spring as well)...after i harvested the sunchokes i went around and picked all the cowpea pods i could find for next years nitrogen supply...that done i pulled them up by the roots and yanked the vines off the trellis and proceeded to turn what soil that hadn't been disturbed by the harvest over and aerated it with the cultivator ( i also ran into numerous earthworm as i dug the tubers...the batch of worms i put in in spring 2010 has seemingly thrived and reproduced...surviving even this spring's mole invasion)...then i broadcast hard red winter wheat seed on all the areas that didn't have jerusalem artichokes planted in them or that i wasn't going to have to mulch next month...the window for planting winter wheat is nearly closed ( although i did plant it on the 29th of october last year and had good crops on campus and at home) and i just finished turning the cowpeas in the old potato bed here at home under and planting wheat there as well...that be will be seed for next fall and i will continue as long as i can produce viable seed...more later at yam harvest and putting the garden to bed for winter as well as an update on the progress of the wheat.